Backtalker

A Memoir

By: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Narrated by: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

One of the most influential public intellectuals in the world and the architect of the two biggest ideas to reshape the American conversation about fairness offers the intimate story of how her life gave birth to these ideas.

It is not very often that someone comes along and permanently reshapes the way Americans think about two of the most important issues of the day. In this case: race and gender. But that is what Kimberlé Crenshaw did when she articulated two concepts that would forever change national and global debates about equality: intersectionality and critical race theory.

Backtalker is the powerful and intimate story of how a little girl from Canton, Ohio, came up with a new way to look at the world. Crenshaw’s memoir traces the way her lived experience made her see things others didn’t as the daughter of a strong-minded teacher and a pathbreaking public servant, and as the sister of a protective, yet bullying older brother. She starts to talk back, and that backtalking has continued throughout her life. It happens when she is denied a role in the kindergarten school play. When she is escorted to the back door of a private club. When Anita Hill is exiled for testifying against Clarence Thomas. When OJ Simpson goes on trial. When Obama launches My Brother’s Keeper, a movement focused on boys of color only. When the movement against police violence overlooks Black women. Crenshaw is there for all of it.

In the vein of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Bryan Stevenson, Crenshaw evokes each time and place like a gifted novelist with extreme honesty and specificity, making her book a series of awe-inspiring, deep revelations. As a result of her work, Crenshaw has become a force to be reckoned with across America—at schools, in the workplace, at dinner tables, and, of course, in our public square.

My New Favorite Book

The night before its release, I was watching The Last Word and was intrigued by what I heard from the author. As soon as it was released, I purchased it. There is something so powerful listening to a book, read by the author. Kimberle’ Williams Crenshaw’s story made me smile when she talked about her fierce mother and it made me cry, when mother’s who’s daughters were murdered by the police wanting their names spoken and justice for their baby girls. I was thinking while listening about injustice. How is it in that in 2026,institutional racism isn’t a thing of the past? Racism, sexism and patriarchy negatively impacts all Americans. I’ve already recommended this book to my friends at work. Thank you for your story.